Allan Appel Photo
Warren Seacord has lived in New Haven for decades but had never set foot int he Pardee-Morris House. He thought it was always closed.
He thinks that way no longer.
On his first visit Sunday afternoon he practiced his alphabet and did a quick reading of the Lord’s Prayer from a genuine Colonial hornbook.
Seacord was one of more than 100 people to tour the city’s historical gem in on Lighthouse Point Road in Morris Cove on opening day Sunday.
The hornbook, along with a sugar nippers, lemon squeezer, and various utensils common to the Colonial kitchen, are part of a new teaching collection the New Haven Museum has purchased to give hands-on xperience to visitors.
Talks and concerts are coming this season as well, along with visits by the New Haven Free Public Library’s Readmobile because the East Shore does not have a branch library, said the New Haven Museum’s Education Director Michelle Cheng.
“Welcome to Amos Morris’s pad,” said Mrs. Morris, aka Priscilla Searles.
The house will be open from June 2 to Aug. 25, Sundays only, 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.
This is the second season that the house has had active summer programming. It represents a renewal after long-deferred maintenance aggravated East Shore neighbors and then-state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal implemented a review of the finances of the New Haven Museum, which owns and operates the house..
All is on the mend, and more, according to the Museum’s director Margaret Ann Tokarshewsky. The roof and envelope of the house are fairly secure, she said.
The Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation has recently awarded the museum a $20,000 matching grant to work up a priority plan for the next steps that need to be taken to stabilize a structure that was badly damaged when pipes burst five years ago, and a period of deterioration ensued.
Colonial lemon juicer, spoon, and a common food, oyster.
After that, the collection was for the most part removed to the museum, the building stabilized, and inside programming for the most part stopped until the last two years.
In addition to a new drainage system, new windows seem to a priority for the next wave of historic maintenance, said Tokarshewsky. Based on the plan, the museum hopes to apply for a major Historic Restoration Fund grant from the state to do the work in the fall.
On Sunday, Priscilla Searles, playing the role of Mrs. Amos Morris, or a typical Colonial housewife, had on her cap and apron and recounted for Seacord why it was common for a 18th century house in New Haven to a lemon juicer, even though that crop doesn’t grow here.
Answer: We’re a sea port, and the ships often had supplies of lemons when they put in.
Searles, who sits on the museum’s board and chairs the Pardee-Morris subcommittee, said she hopes that as the building comes together, a tenant will be able to live in the house as watchman and caretaker.
Her son did precisely that between 1991 and 1997 after he graduated from high school.
Her delight in knowledge about the house was evident.
She always asks kids what they would miss most living in a house like this in 1780, she said. The usual answers: a computer and TV.
Searle’s retort is: “What about a bathroom?”
The first concert of the season will be of American folk music on June 19 at 7 p.m. On July 3 a swing band will serenade; everyone will be invited picnic on the large yard, and to dance afterwards.
Lemons (vitamin C) protected sailors against scurvy. I'll have to pay a visit.